Defenders

by Will McIntosh

  Maybe all of it was moot. How much time did they have left, realistically? A year? He should adopt Kai, and let the kid eat ice cream for dinner every night, if that’s what he wanted to do.

  “Do you want to know why you really collect comic books?”

  Oliver groaned. “I’m not the one who tortured you. I have been nothing but civil to you. Why are you so hostile?

  “I’m not being hostile. I’m just passing time.”

  Until that night, when the people in charge had tired of Oliver’s inability to get Five to tell him anything useful, their conversations had been relatively polite. Certainly not warm, but polite. Two emissaries, on opposite sides of their species’ struggle to the death, discussing the situation in even tones.

  “Do you want to know?” Five asked.

  Oliver didn’t answer. Five knew he didn’t want to know, that he was sick to death of having his mind cut open and pinned to a piece of cardboard, but Oliver knew Five would ignore this, because that was the game.

  “You collect comic books because you harbor an infantile desire for the superheroes to be real. You want the Hulk, Spider-Man, and the Silver Surfer to come and save you. To save your kind. Even a cowboy on a white horse would do.”

  Go ahead, Oliver thought, pluck the name of the cowboy on the white horse out of my head. Only it’s not a white horse, it’s a silver horse. The hat is white.

  “The Lone Ranger,” Five said.

  “Yes, I’m waiting for the Lone Ranger to save me.” Oliver had never actually watched that ancient show, but that was beside the point.

  “No one is coming to save you.”

  Oliver looked at his fingernails. Had he remembered to pack nail clippers when the security contingent showed up at his house and told him to pack? Hopefully they’d been in his shaving kit when he packed it. He went to the bathroom to look.

  “You have no hope left,” Five said. “I respect that. You’re realistic, for one of your kind.”

  He stared into the mirror. Was that true? Did he have no hope?

  It was almost true. Not 100 percent true, but it wasn’t a lie.

  Oliver looked into his own tired, watery eyes and realized he was letting this creature beat him. If he had no hope, if he’d given up in his heart, he was useless. He was betraying President Wood, his country, his kind, who were trusting him with a crucial task. Maybe he was here primarily because all of the men and women more capable of doing this job were dead. Maybe that was true.

  It is true.

  “Shut up!” he shouted.

  Even if it was true, he had assets and abilities those people lacked. He needed to better utilize his assets.

  Maybe he could turn Five’s humiliating insights around to his advantage. Five was good at exposing his weaknesses. Fine, now he knew what his weaknesses were. As any decent psychologist knew, if you’re not aware of your weaknesses, they control you; if you’re aware of them, if you face up to them, you control them.

  Based on Five’s attacks, his weaknesses were Vanessa, and his lack of confidence in himself.

  They’re just the tip of the iceberg.

  “Shut up.”

  As Five had so aptly observed, he was waiting for superheroes to show up and save him. Since all the superheroes—all of the CIA’s action people—were dead, he needed to get himself a cape. Even if, inside, he didn’t feel it, even if he felt like a fraud, it was time to play the part of the big, strong CIA agent. It was time to lock out his doubts and fears, put his head down, and take bullets until he couldn’t get up anymore.

  “You’re wrong,” he said aloud, because to humans speaking something aloud held a certain power, made the words real in a way thinking them did not. “I’m realistic; I recognize that we’re losing. Badly. But I still have hope. We haven’t lost yet. We’re headed somewhere, and I’m pretty sure we’re not going there to surrender.”

  The little speech sounded canned even to his ears; they were the sort of words Batman might speak in a comic book. But Oliver had to admit, it still felt good to say them.

  5

  Kai Zhou

  July 1, 2029 (eight months earlier). Washington, D.C.

  Kai pried the flagstone loose from the walk that meandered through the church’s walled garden. The small, square key was underneath, just as the Luyten said it would be. He plucked it from its hiding spot, headed for the back door of the church.

  Not there. Back the other way. Walk along the wall.

  Kai did as he was told, his mouth watering with anticipation despite the wild guilt he felt. A church.

  There was a small graveyard set inside a low, ornamental fence. Ivy covered the fence and crawled along the ground.

  There. Behind the statue.

  Behind a mold-stricken statue of an angel with spread wings was a raised concrete circle with a steel cover. Looking around first, though it was probably unnecessary, Kai approached the cover, inserted the key into the hole, and pulled the hatch open.

  The cover lifted fairly easily, revealing a dark hole, a ladder leading down. Kai climbed to the bottom, a dozen or so feet below the ground. He was surrounded by shelves of food—dried, packaged meals, like the ones soldiers ate.

  Whose are these? he thought. It was confusing, to speak to it without speaking. There was no line dividing what he wanted to say and what he just wanted to think.

  The pastor. Speak out loud if you prefer, but quietly.

  “Why is this food down here?” Kai whispered, relieved.

  Because he doesn’t want to share it. Take six.

  Hands shaking with anticipation, Kai grabbed the meals, struggled up the ladder one-handed, and headed for the gate.

  Not yet. Go toward the church.

  “I don’t want to get caught,” Kai whispered.

  I know where everyone is. Go.

  Kai went. The voice directed him along the back of the church, to a dirt- and leaf-covered black steel grate in the ground along the back wall.

  Open the grate. Drop four down.

  Drop them. Why on Earth would he do that?

  Realization swept over him with an icy chill. It was down there. Hiding. Probably hurt.

  I’m in trouble, just like you. I’m alone and afraid, just like you.

  It was difficult for Kai to imagine one of those big, ugly monsters being afraid, and lonely. “Why are you lonely? I thought you could talk to other Luyten in your head.”

  They’re all too far away.

  They had an eight-mile range. Kai remembered hearing that.

  That’s right.

  As Kai knocked on the door, he told himself he had no choice but to do what the Luyten told him. It hadn’t made any threats, but it was huge, and powerful, and he was just a kid.

  A woman answered the door. She was Asian like him, a streak of gray running through her long hair. More important, the aroma of fish and rice wafted through the door from a nearby kitchen.

  Her name is Mrs. Boey. Tell her you have a message from her daughter. Valerie.

  “Mrs. Boey? My name is Kai. I have a message from your daughter Valerie.”

  The woman’s expression transformed. “You heard from my baby?” She opened the door, put a hand on Kai’s shoulder, and led him inside.

  Valerie is outside Richmond, alive. She helped you escape. She asked you to tell her mother she’s sorry about the argument they had before she left.

  Is Valerie alive, Kai thought.

  Probably not.

  With a crippling knot of guilt in his stomach, Kai told Mrs. Boey her daughter was alive and well, as a dozen people sitting elbow to elbow around a kitchen table looked on. Food was already on the table, and after Kai delivered his news the woman had little choice but to invite him to share their meal. The food was delicious; Kai ate voraciously, every chopstick-full sticking in his throat on the way down as he watched Mrs. Boey across the table, smiling, probably eating more easily than she had at any time since her sixteen-year-old daughter left to battle the Luyten four
months earlier.

  He should tell them, he thought. He should blurt out that there was a Luyten hiding under the church. Once it was out, there was nothing it could do. It was the enemy. It and its kind wanted to wipe out everyone on Earth, and they were succeeding—

  If you tell her, you’ll go back to being cold and hungry.

  Kai didn’t want to be hungry again. More than that, he didn’t want to be alone in the dark, stumbling through places where there might be dead bodies.

  “Do you have family nearby?” an old, bent woman asked Kai.

  “No. I have an aunt and uncle in Connecticut, but it’s too far.”

  I’m not a soldier. I haven’t killed anyone.

  It was not the first time the Luyten had told him this.

  It claimed it had been shot out of the sky, part of a small contingent of Luyten on a night reconnaissance mission over D.C. The military knew a Luyten had been shot down in the area and they were hunting for it. For Five, he reminded himself. It had asked Kai to call it Five. It must have been injured in the crash, but it wouldn’t say.

  After the meal, Mrs. Boey said, “I’d ask you to stay, but as you can see, there’s just no room.” She gestured toward her relatives, most of them young or very old.

  Kai told her he understood, and followed her to the door carrying the leftover food she had given him.

  As he headed toward the back of the church, Kai wondered if Five had purposely chosen a house where Kai was likely to get food, but not a place to sleep. If someone took Kai in, he would have less incentive to protect Five’s secret.

  Yes, Five said. I don’t want to die. I’m just as afraid to die as you are.

  “Why are you doing this to us?” Kai whispered, although there was no one to hear him—the street was cold and empty, the orange glowlights along the sidewalk his only guide in the darkness. “Can’t we share the world? Why do you have to have it all to yourselves?”

  We would have done that gladly, but we know your minds. Do you really think your kind would have taken us in as refugees? They won’t even take you in.

  Kai pulled open the grate leading to the church’s basement and dropped the food Mrs. Boey had given him into the darkness.

  Wake up. Five’s message was deafening, like an alarm set too loud.

  Kai lifted himself from the cold concrete, looked groggily into the street, where mist crawled close to the pavement. “It’s the middle of the night.”

  Soldiers are coming with spotlights. Hide in the bathroom.

  Still half asleep, Kai gathered the towels and blanket he’d pilfered from an apartment using a key hidden by its owner and hurried into the bathroom.

  A few minutes later Kai heard the purr of engines. Two all-terrain crawlers rolled past on fat tires, flashing spotlights as soldiers scanned the buildings with night glasses. Kai pulled the bathroom door closed.

  “How do they know where to find you?”

  My heat signature. I have a baffle, but I can’t run it all the time.

  “Why not?”

  The crawlers purred away. Kai wondered if Five was debating whether to trust him. He wondered if it should.

  I trust you now. But after I leave, or I’m killed, you’ll tell your people what you’ve learned about me. If I’m gone, probably they won’t believe you. But if I’m caught, they will.

  Kai immediately thought to lie, to claim he wouldn’t tell. Then he caught himself, remembered lying was impossible.

  Talking to you was a betrayal of my kind. I feel deeply ashamed. I was alone, in terrible pain. I was afraid to die.

  Was Kai betraying his kind, by keeping Five’s secret? He was sure he was, although it wasn’t as if Five was a threat, hiding under a church, cut off.

  To answer your question, I’m almost out of power. That’s why I can’t run the baffle all of the time.

  Kai had gotten accustomed to the sensation of Five speaking in his head. It wasn’t as unpleasant as it had been at first. It reminded him of how he’d grown to like hot sauce on his chili. The first time he’d tried hot sauce it had been awful, burning his tongue and lips, making his eyes water. But the stinging had grown pleasant.

  When he pictured where the voice was coming from, though, when he pictured that giant starfish crawling around under the church…

  That made him dizzy with fear.

  “I don’t understand why you don’t just sneak out of the city, if you know where everyone is.”

  I am large, and a novel sight. I can’t evade the eyes of every person who might look out their window.

  That made sense. “So how will you ever escape?”

  Unless one of my kind enters my range so I can contact it, I won’t.

  It was morning when Five woke him again.

  They’re coming back. More of them. Many more.

  Kai peered out at the rectangle of street visible from his sleeping spot, at the passing vehicles, the faded pod-style apartment complex across the street. “Will they find you?”

  Yes, probably. You should get away now, before they come. Otherwise they might question you about what you’ve seen or heard. Their eye gear is equipped with vocal stress-detectors, so they’ll know you’re lying. I don’t want you to get in trouble because you were kind to me. Go now, through the back.

  Kai gathered up his bedding and ran out through the back side of the bay, into waist-high milkweeds that choked the space between the garage and the building behind it.

  The telltale whisper of an ultralight copter grew louder as Kai pushed onto the sidewalk and turned right, up a hill.

  You should feel proud, Five said. We should both feel proud. We were kind to each other, despite everything. I’m not ashamed to call you my friend.

  A line of army crawlers appeared at the top of the hill, the crawlers’ legs tucked, their big wheels spinning.

  Kai watched them pass, his emotions in a tangle. He would miss Five, would miss its company at night, but he was also relieved to be getting away. He wanted to be free of the terrible guilt that he was betraying his people, although he would probably always feel guilty for consorting with the enemy. What would people think, if they found out?

  Kai heard shouted orders. A moment later a squad of soldiers trotted around the corner—men and women, young and old, some in brick-red camo fatigues, others in torn jeans and soiled T-shirts. Head down, he pressed close to the buildings to let them pass. They were young, but not kids. Soldiers in their prime. There weren’t many of them left.

  What if a soldier asked him directly if he’d seen or heard anything? Would he lie to protect Five? Five probably knew the answer to that better than Kai did.

  Maybe that was why Five told Kai to leave: not out of concern for him, but because Five was afraid Kai would betray it.

  That’s not true. I’m trying to protect you.

  Down the hill, Kai could see the church, had a partial view beyond the fence, into the garden. Two soldiers were in there, but they didn’t seem to know where to look. Five’s baffle must still be working.

  I’m using the last of my power reserve to operate it. It won’t last much longer, but maybe long enough.

  One of the soldiers was a woman. Asian. It could be that woman’s daughter. What was her name? Valerie. If those two soldiers went into the basement, would Five kill them?

  I’m not a soldier. I’m not a fighter.

  Kai would, if they were Luyten, coming to kill him. In an instant.

  He took a step toward the church, then hesitated. What should he do? Both choices seemed wrong.

  He closed his eyes, pictured his mom. What would she want him to do? What she would want was what he should do. You don’t throw away friends, she’d told him once. But wasn’t it wrong to be friends with a Luyten in the first place? They’d killed her, and Dad, too.

  Opening his eyes, he headed down the hill, toward the church.

  Kai, please. Don’t. I just want to go home. I just want to see my mother. Now that I know you, I could never he
lp them.

  As Kai pushed through the gate, the soldiers turned, their weapons pointed at the ground.

  “Go back to your home—” the Asian soldier started to say.

  “It’s in there,” Kai said, pointing at the church. “In the cellar.”

  Both soldiers were suddenly wide-eyed alert.

  They’ll kill me. Please. They’ll burn me.

  “You saw it?” the other soldier, a black man, said.

  “I—” Kai struggled to describe how he knew. “I heard it.”

  We’re friends.

  The Asian soldier was babbling into her comm, repeating what Kai had just said, then giving their location.

  “Promise you won’t hurt it. It’s just a scout—not a soldier.”

  The two soldiers gawked at Kai like he was nuts, as a dozen others stormed through the gate.

  “The cellar?” a gray-haired soldier called as they ran by.

  “That’s what the kid says.”

  They surrounded the hatch, one of them holding a flamethrower.

  They’re coming. I’m scared, Kai. I’m so scared.

  Kai bolted toward the church. “Don’t hurt it.”

  “Hang on,” the Asian soldier shouted at the others. They waited as she turned to Kai, one hand on her wrist comm. “Kid, I need the truth from you—this is very serious. Are you saying the starfish actually spoke to you? Or do you mean you heard it moving around down there?”

  Kai looked her right in the eye. “It spoke to me.”

  After a short interchange on her comm, she ran over to the others, huddled around the hatch. “We’re taking it alive.”

  “Holy shit,” a tall, brown-skinned soldier said.

  “CIA is sending people to help.”

  The Asian soldier sidled over to Kai, wrapped a hand over his shoulder. “Stick around. They want to talk to you.” She must have seen that this scared Kai, because she added, “Don’t worry, they’ll take good care of you. There’s lots of food there.”

  6

  Oliver Bowen